Why am I only good for an hour?

The first 10 minutes I'll warm up by hitting very lightly. At the 20 minute mark, I'm swinging with more speed but still focusing on consistency over power. At the 30 minute mark, I've got my strokes down. The next half hour will be my best. All my strokes and footwork are good.

As soon as one hour of all this is done, something just "snaps" and I'm playing like crap. I'm just mostly inconsistent. One theory I have is that I just get mentally lazy. I'm not out of shape, I just feel mentally tired.

Is there any way I can prolong the "golden tennis" time period, past the 1 hour mark?

Easy there...
You're just getting bored.
So play sets and stop just hitting/rallying for a while.
You have an ego don't you? Beat everyone the best you can do. It's no fun if you don't enjoy winning.

Click to expand...

See, I always get this feeling of frustration when I'm playing the wall. It works wonders for my consistency, but after an hour I'm just hitting the ball and not thinking. Guess I just answered my own question...

All mental. Going by what you've said, you pay attention to the warm up stage and transition to hitting lightly well. You are conscious about taking these steps to get you to what you've told yourself is the "last part".

However, if you have no structure for the hitting, errors will come in because there is no focus. I would suggest focusing on one element for a set period of time. For example, focus on extending your arm and in front after contact. Your mind will be active and not passive whilst doing this. Then move on to something else.

The main thing is to have structure, a plan for what you are doing on and off the court. Without it, unless you are comfortable with 40 mins of decent hitting or you can finish off a match in this time, then you are going to get frustrated. There is no reason to get frustrated if you can remedy the situation.

Try to close your eyes and play a set. If you can't get through a set with your eyes closed, you have a problem with your concentration. You should be able to play 6 games. 3 serves and 3 breaks in real-time in your mind. You can hit winners, grind the point out, you can lose points, win all the points. The idea is for you to focus on being in the match and letting nothing distract you. Try it and let us know how you do.

Just like the strokes (which are fairly easy) what you do with you mind game is extremely important and 99.9% of the time it's neglected. The mental game was the difference between Agassi the showman, the insane shotmaker, the wild child, the man who didn't take all the titles and the man we know today. The one that learned patience and combined that with his deadly game. Before Roger stepped up and when Sampras decided to stop, Agassi was the one nobody wanted in their half of the draw.

The same is true of Nadal. I know many friends who have played against him and for a world-class athlete to describe playing against another guy as "the worst punishment ever" is a tribute. He has the shots, but so do many people. His complete and utter refusal to let you walk off the court as the winner is the reason he is sitting at #1. It's the reason that only a few people will have a winning record against him. Knowing when to focus and when to relax when you are on court is the key to this game.

These are the things you need to think about before you step on the court again for your next practice.